Ek Paheli Leela Movie Review

In Bollywood, there are certain people, for whom the saying ‘out of sight, out of mind’ refuses to be true. The western import to Bollywood aka Sunny Leone is definitely one of them! Despite having not a single release since the last year (her last release was RAGINI MMS 2), still, her films are awaited with same enthusiasm and excitement. If one Sunny Leone wasn’t enough, this week’s release EK PAHELI LEELA sees Sunny Leone in a double role! Will Sunny live upto providing double the excitement or will this double role saga land mean double-trouble at the Box-Office windows for Sunny and the film, let’s analyze!

The film starts off with the introduction of Karan (Jay Bhanushali) who gets up suddenly from a disturbed sleep because of a few ‘torturous memories’ that have been torturing him ever since the time he moved into a new house. Around the same time, the viewers are also treated to the introduction of the London based eye-candy supermodel Meera (Sunny Leone). Once, without asking Meera, her business manager Andy (Andy) plans a trip to Rajasthan (India), because he had already committed to the client by taking an advance for the shoot. Despite her refusal to come to India, Andy and his friends manage to get her to shoot in Rajasthan. Amidst their shooting, a rich prince Ranveer Singh (Mohit Ahlawat), who sees Meera, falls for her enchanting beauty. Gradually, the duo fall in love and get married. Meanwhile, in an attempt to solve his sleeping disorder and disturbing dreams, a very worried and distressed Karan meets up with a ‘Nadi Shastra’ guru, who tells him that he has taken birth in this janam because of certain tasks which were left incomplete 300 years ago. He also adds that, during that time, he wasn’t able to marry his lover Meera (Sunny Leone). He adds that the reason for their love failure were of the evil ways of Bhairav (Rahul Dev), who was so much besotted with Leela’s beauty that he carved a lifelike idol! Wasting no time, in search of his lost love, Karan reaches Rajasthan. Even though he wants to tell the 300 year saga to Meera, he understands the fact that, Leela, who is now Meera, is happily married to Ranveer.

Does Karan manage to convince Meera about their past lives, will he ever be able to rekindle the age old love in Meera aka Leela’s heart for him, what ultimately happens to Leela’s idol that Bhairav had so finely crafted, and what is the unexpected twist in the tale that changes the story of history, is what forms the rest of the film.

The film not just marks Bobby Khan’s directorial debut in Bollywood, but also Sunny Leone’s ‘double role debut’ in Bollywood. As far as Bobby Khan and his direction cum writing are concerned, he smoothly sails his way through the film. He (along with Ahmed Khan) has not just done not just a commendable job, but an exceptional job of presenting Sunny Leone in a never-before glam avatar. They have done total justice to the ‘expectations’ which the audiences have from a Sunny Leone film. Even though the first half is lengthy, the second half is what really works in favor of the film and in the interest of the audience. One has to applaud Bobby for having tackled the skin show aesthetically, which doesn’t even, for once, come across as cheap or anything of that sort. All in all, Bobby Khan scores really big with his directorial debut EK PAHELI LEELA.

As far as the performances are concerned, it’s a mere child’s play to decipher that it is the ‘omnipresent’ Sunny Leone who leads the film right from the word go. Sunny is equally convincing and at ease in her glam avatar as much as her ‘Rajashthan ki chhori’ avatar! Watching her groove and gyrate to the beats of the songs is a visual treat in itself. All in all, she delivers a ‘paisa vasool’ performance in this film. As far as the heroes of the film are concerned, while Jay Bhanushali tries too hard (read ‘struggles’) with his character, the duo of Rajniesh Duggal and Rahul Dev leave an impact, despite having short roles. The film also sees the return of the 90’s supermodel Jas Arora, who, does a decent job in the film. The surprise packet of the film is the towering Mohit Ahlawat, who plays his part with perfection, thus adding the required ‘alpha male quotient’ to the film. The rest of the characters fill in the gaps to make the film a complete package.

The film’s music (Meet Bros Anjjan, Amaal Mallik, Dr. Zeus, Tony Kakkar, Uzair Jaswal) is already a rage with a couple of outstanding tracks. While the film’s cinematography (Basha Lal) and screenplay (Jojo Khan) are top-class, the film’s dialogues (Bunty Rathore) are decent. The locations of the shoot are superlative and are presented really well. Brownie points to the costume designers for designing such fabulous costumes.

On the whole, EK PAHELI LEELA is worth watching, purely because of Sunny Leone and the way she has been presented… like never before!!!